Active and Inactive Landfills in New York – State Heat Map
Some communities are disapproptionally cited with many landfills.
Materials and Waste
Mill Seat Landfill, 1995 vs 2020
Mill Seat Landfill is owned by Monroe County and operated by Waste Management of New York, LLC. The facility is located on the western edge of Monroe County in the Town of Riga. Mill Seat Landfill was permitted in 1991 and began operation in 1993. In 2002, Monroe County partnered with Waste Management to operate the site. Waste Management is proud to partner with the towns of Riga and Bergen, the villages of Churchville and Bergen, as well as Monroe County.
Notable is how much of this landfill is surrounded by regulated wetlands, as shown in green and yellow on this map.
LEFT - Circa 1995, a few years after opening
RIGHT - Circa 2020, a contemporary aerial photo
Active Landfills in New York State 2023
Food Waste Composting Facilities In New York State
Nearby the state's population centers in upstate, there are several composting facilities for food waste, mostly from institutional generators like cafeterias and prisons. This year's state budget, contained language requiring food waste composting for large generators of waste, where facilities exist nearby.
Data Source: Composting - Solid Waste Management Facilities Map. https://data.ny.gov/Energy-Environment/Composting-Solid-Waste-Management-Facilities-Map/y4ic-kfv6
Bottle Bill Return Rates
It Burns
Probably everybody should recycle.
This picture is inside a burning barrel from a farm not too far from where I live. While these people are truly nice people, as you can see they don't recycle. But can you blame them?
By burning they are reducing their waste down to almost nothing. And it's a pain to store and haul all these consumeristic extras to the landfill every couple of weeks.
Taken on Wednesday December 27, 2006 at Trash.Vinyl Chloride Spills
I was thinking about the recent chemical spill in Ohio, and remembered the vinyl chloride spill at Selkirk Railyard last year. I was curious how common such spills are. 60 reported spills of vinyl chloride have occurred since 1976, though some of them didn't have enough information to geocode on the address on the map.